


The Heart of the Stars

by Haruka_1224



Category: League of Legends
Genre: AU, F/F, Star Guardian - Freeform, Star Guardian Lux/Jinx, magical girl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haruka_1224/pseuds/Haruka_1224
Summary: Luxanna Crownguard was just an ordinary, overachieving high schooler when she was chosen to be a Star Guardian, to protect the world from Baron Nashor and his minions from the Void. Unfortunately, the First Star did not make her task any easier when it selected her four teammates - they were all distinct, clashing personalities that found it hard to get along with each other.Especially Jinx.How was she supposed to save the world when she could barely keep her team together?





	1. A Second Chance

The world is a pretty enough place when looked at from a great enough distance, I suppose, when you can’t see the marks of individual suffering etched on everyone’s faces. That’s why I’ve never particularly liked it, kept to the fringes like the crazy outcast that I am – I never had a reason to care about it. The most I would ever do was help the destruction along, add more hatred and chaos to the equation, cuz why the hell not? I didn’t care about the world or anyone in it.

Not until now, but all that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m dead, for one, and for another the world shining up at me is frozen, time forcibly ground to a screeching halt. I’m the only one moving, sitting on the roof of a skyscraper with my legs dangling off the edge, the only one still breathing when I’m the one that’s dead.

She should be coming soon, the cause of this frozen world, and I wonder if I’ll be able to talk her out of doing what I know she’s trying to do…

“J-Jinx…?” Ah, here she finally is, the prissy Princess of the Stars.

“Jinx!” her voice sounds broken, disbelieving, desperate, all sorts of things that it normally isn’t. I don’t turn around not because I don’t want to see her, but because I don’t want to see the heartbroken look on her face.

Sadness doesn’t suit her, she looks much better smiling or frowning or just… being that bright, annoying nuisance that she normally is. Despair isn’t her thing, it’s mine, she’s too fluffy and straightforward to know how to keep the pain out of her eyes.

“I’m dead, Lux,” I say, keeping my eyes focused on the city below. “You have to let me go.”

“Jinx…” she touches my shoulder, but still I refuse to turn. “I can reset this, we can-”

I interrupt her as harshly as I can, “We won, Lux, that’s all that matters! The world is safe, so what if I’m dead? No one cares.”

Her voice is impossibly soft as she says, “ _I care_.”

Of course she does, she’s the only one. And that’s the problem here – cruel as it may seem, the will of the world trumps the will of the individual. It’ll be better for the entire planet if she just let time move on, instead of resetting it in a desperate attempt to bring me back to life.

“I can’t live without you, Jinx,” she’s sobbing now, tearing at my heart and making it so hard for me to tell her to do the right thing. I don’t want her to be sad, and if she goes on in this timeline, she will be.

But she’ll get better, she has to. She’s the Lady of Luminosity, for Star’s sake, she’s light incarnate! There’s no way she’ll mourn me in darkness for the rest of her life, she’ll pick herself up and continue walking. She has to.

Finally facing her, I gently cup her cheek, wiping away her tears with the pad of my thumb. “You have to; it’s not fair to undo everyone’s hard work just for one life.”

“Since when were you the rational one?” she chokes, hands resting tremulously on my waist. “You were always for doing whatever you pleased.”

“You must’ve rubbed off on me,” I respond fondly, running my fingers through her bright pink hair.

I love her too much to put her through this again, to have her fight and bleed and struggle as the great Baron Nashor tries to destroy the world. I love her too much to make her suffer again, to have her cry and shout and scream as the stress of leading the saviors of the world tears away at her insides.

It’s enough, we’ve been through enough, just… move on.

She’s bullishly optimistic and foolishly sunny, always trying to find the silver lining in the darkest clouds and fighting, fighting, always fighting. She’ll miss me, of course she will, that’s what love does to people, but the pain will fade. And even if it doesn’t, she’ll grow strong enough to bear it and live.

Autumn always comes when you’re not yet done with the summer, and though you’ll wish it lasted longer, there’s nothing you can do about it but move forward.

Shaking her head, she chuckles through her tears, “And you on me, it seems. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I… honestly didn’t expect you to,” I sigh; I’ve had firsthand experience on how stubborn prissy Miss Luxanna Crownguard can be.

I mean, she bugged me for months before the whole Star Guardian crap happened, and no matter how much I snubbed her, skipped school or broke rules, she never gave up on me. She kept trying to reform me, make me a better student, a better _person_ , and it’s rather sad that it all happened too late.

I’m a better person now, but I’m dead.

“You know me too well,” she mumbles, burying her face in my shoulder. Her voice cracks again as she whispers, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

All I can do is hold her closer, tighter, silently apologizing for the pain I have put her through. I had been reckless, threw away my life in a surge of heroism, and she was the one who had to pay the price.

“I love you, Jinx.”

“And I love you,” I shake my head with a weak, watery smile – dammit, I’m crying too. “But we won’t remember any of this.”

“But you’ll be alive, and as long as you are, we can make new memories,” she says stubbornly, and I resist the urge to chide her for abusing her powers. The reset was meant as an emergency measure, in case we lost and the Baron emerged from the Void to destroy the world. It wasn’t supposed to be used to save lost girlfriends.

“We’ll meet again soon, then.”

“It’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how soon I'll actually continue this, but I do have a full Star Guardian AU planned out. I'm just sick and lazy uwu  
> Please leave kudos/comment if you liked the story!


	2. Rewind: Restart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jinx's name comes from the book "Christmas Jinx" by Natalie-Nicole Bates.
> 
> Everyone's appearance is based off their default skins, except the five Star Guardians, since the video showed them resembling their Star Guardian skins even in normal form.

**Lux**

Walking in to a pile of student complaints avalanching off her desk was hardly her favorite way to start the day, and 17 year old Luxanna Crownguard found herself regretting her Student Council position again for the billionth time that week.

Valoran Academy was a special, elite four-year boarding school located in the center of the entire country, receiving only the best students from around the world. It had a unique, student-run system, where the Student Council decided on and meted out most of the rules and punishments, as well as decided on school projects, managed budgets - basically, anything that wasn't teaching. Recently, the students voted overwhelmingly on helping society by taking in a number of orphans from all over the world, coordinated by Valoran’s string of community orphanages, because what could go wrong if you demanded only the scholars amongst them?

The orphans, carefully selected for their intelligence and good results, had mostly adapted well to Academy life and were flourishing beautifully. However, there was a girl among them who was causing much more trouble than Luxanna ever imagined a single person could.

Under official record, the girl’s name was Imogen Zaun – her last name derived from the city-state she was picked up in – but no one, not even the teachers, called her by that. Instead, everyone, even the girl herself, called her “Jinx”, since she was just a lanky, redheaded ball of trouble. Chaos seemed to follow in her wake, whether she consciously caused it or not – her mere presence in the Chemistry lab seemed to have caused a huge chlorine leak that led to a mass evacuation of the East wing.

With a deep sigh, Luxanna collapsed on her chair, readying herself for the daunting task of reading, reviewing and responding to the complaints, which would most likely center around said girl. Why had Valoran Community even suggested her to them?

Before she could begin, the door swung open, revealing her vice-president, Ashe Avarosa. A snowy haired fellow third year from the Freljord, way up in the North, Ashe was a serious, hardworking girl who shouldered responsibilities with the air of a Queen. If it were not for her steadfast presence, Luxanna would have probably folded from the pressure of her job ages ago.

Ashe’s eyebrows raised almost comically at the sight of the mountain of paperwork, but she managed to hold back a sigh as she placed her bag at the foot of her desk.

“Buckle up, Ashe, we’re in for another busy day,” Luxanna’s smile was strained as she gestured to the paper mountain. "Are you sure you don't want to take a day off class? I can easily arrange it."

Ashe took her seat with a faint smile of her own, “I’ll be fine, Luxanna.”

It was a lie and they both knew it – for the last few weeks, Ashe had been getting up at 6AM to tackle the paperwork, going to class as usual at 8, returning to work after classes ended at 1 and going to bed at around 2 in the morning, way after Luxanna had clocked out for the day. She was a workaholic, it drove her crazy to leave anything undone, and it was obviously wearing her out. Luxanna was positive the girl had lost at least five pounds in the last week alone, and that was definitely not healthy.

“Fine, but if you pass out, I’m telling the Du Couteau girl you’re always hanging out with to carry you off,” she teased, half-jokingly. “She’s been hanging around outside our room almost every night, waiting for you like a lost puppy.”

Ashe turned an impressive shade of red at that – did she not expect anyone to notice how close the two of them had gotten since the middle of second year? Katarina Du Couteau had been a menace when she entered, the Jinx of the first year, but after Ashe was sent to speak to her, the problems all but disappeared. They quickly became inseparable, and the school decided that assigning Student Council members to troublemakers was more effective than constantly punishing them.

“It seems like we’ll have to assign someone to this… Jinx,” Ashe quickly changed the subject. “I’m almost willing to bet that every single complaint here is for her.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Luxanna said hopefully, picking up a random stack and flipping through it, “There has to be at least one that’s about a blocked toilet or something.”

_Jinx vandalized the third floor girl’s bathroom. Jinx somehow spray-painted her name on the school's South wall, four stories off the ground. Jinx tore the door of the third year homeroom off its hinges. Jinx flipped the bird at the headmaster. Jinx set up a trip wire outside the first year dorm and at least four people have twisted ankles. Jinx spiked the water cooler tank with whiskey. Jinx poured red food coloring into the fourth year dorm's water tank, freaking everyone out. Jinx gave the school cat bourbon…_

“Okay… it is.”

Ashe laughed, shaking her head, “Didn’t I tell you? This girl is more trouble than Kat… arina ever was.”

Luxanna noticed the nickname but decided not to point it out – she was sure her friend would tell her about it when she was ready. Anyway, they had more important things to do – set up teams to remove the graffiti, hire professionals to clean out the water tanks, and maybe find out how the girl was smuggling alcohol into the school.

“This girl is more trouble than Katarina could ever hope to be,” Luxanna huffed, “Is there a single Student Council member equipped to deal with her?”

“She stink-bombed the Treasurer’s dorm room when he tried to have a word with her, and broke the Student Welfare IC’s ankle when she gave it a shot,” Ashe said, her pen already flying furiously over a return form, “Now, the rest of the Council won’t go within ten feet of her.”

Luxanna sighed, following her example and pulling out a stack of return forms – this system really needed an upgrade. Maybe they could email their responses to complaint forms instead; a template would really help save some time.

“I guess it’s up to me, then,” she huffed, her eyebrows nearly disappearing into her hairline as she read the next complaint – how did Jinx manage to steal one bra each from every fourth year girl and hang it up on the electric powerline?

Sure, the year sizes at Valoran were small – about sixty in every cohort – but that was still thirty to forty girls. How could one miss a redhead with skin so pale it practically glowed rummaging through so many underwear drawers?

Luxanna sighed again – she was in for a long year, according to the agreement they had with Valoran Community Orphanage, unless Jinx broke a major rule that would allow them to expel her under special circumstances. And if she was going to, Luxanna prayed that it would be sooner rather than later, because she couldn’t take many more days like these.

 

**Jinx**

Perched on the sloping roof of the third year dormitory, Jinx swung her legs casually over the edge as she watched the idiots below yell and scramble in wild panic. It seemed that half of them were convinced that she was going to jump, that all her troublemaking was some sort of desperate cry for help, while the other half just really wanted her off the damn roof before an accident happened and the school’s wonderful name was tarnished.

“It’s all bullshit, isn’t it?” she asked herself, bright red eyes shining. “Where’s the fun in sticking to the rules like a loser?”

Lowering her voice, she replied, “Well, you might be an inconvenience to people…”

“Aww, but that’s boring,” she whined, her voice returning to normal, “I like it when everyone panics!”

She threw her arms high into the air, giggling as she heard the shocked gasp echo from below. These people were just like the caretakers and director back in Valoran Community, boring, straightforward rule-followers, and she honestly did not expect to stay long.

When the orphanage directors received word from Valoran Academy that it would take any straight-A student between the ages of 15 to 18, they jumped at the chance to get rid of her, keeping her various mental health problems under wraps. No one really wanted her around, even in Zaun, the homeland of gangs, drugs, mindless violence and illegal experimentation.

Jinx had been crazy ever since she could remember – chaotic, wildly free-spirited and destructive, even as a child, she left a trail of carnage wherever she went. She hurt other children, punctured holes in solid concrete, set the kitchen on fire, filled the yard with birdseed and created a chaotic bird battlefield... It was as if Eris herself was trying to manifest inside her tiny body. However, there was no denying her intelligence and capability – at the age of 11, she was sorted into an advanced engineering class with teenagers and young adults almost two times her senior.

She did whatever she wanted when she wanted to, and nothing in the world could hope to contain her. Not the orphanage, not the authorities, and certainly not some prissy boarding school.

“But maybe…” the low voice came back hesitantly, “Maybe if you were less destructive, you wouldn’t be so lonely.”

“I’m not lonely!” she huffed, folding her arms over her chest. “People were made to be broken, and I’m having fun breaking them.”

The voice had nothing to say to that, not that it would have mattered. A group of teachers and Council members had arrived below, and were yelling angrily up at her as they tried to work out a way to return her safely to the ground.

“Jinx, get down here!”

“Jinx, that’s dangerous!”

“How did you even get up there?!”

The world was chaos, and that was exactly how she liked it.

“Imogen Zaun, get off that roof right now!”

The sound of her full name, the shitty one given to her by the orphanage, made Jinx sit up. No one ever called her by that pretentious piece of crap, and she never, not even for a second, ever thought of herself as Imogen. What kind of name was that, anyway?

“Have you thought about the effects of what you’re doing? Your actions have caused nothing but trouble for Valoran Academy!” Jinx finally identified the source of the noise – a girl with ridiculously pink hair, and the Student Council President, if she remembered correctly. The epitome of boring, ordinary rule-follower.

“That’s kind of the point?” she yelled back, raising an eyebrow.

The girl sighed, resting her hands on her hips like some angry, middle-aged woman. “As a student of Valoran Academy, you should be doing your best to uphold its reputation, not destroy it.”

“I didn’t ask to be sent here,” Jinx shrugged, crossing her legs. “And if the school’s reputation is so shaky that a single girl can ruin it, maybe it’s not as good as you think.”

A scandalized gasp rose from the collected students, nearly making her laugh. Were these people for real…? What kind of sheltered, rich bullshit was this?

“Look, Imogen-”

“Call me Jinx,” she interrupted. If she heard that crappy name one more time, she was going to be violently sick, and no one would appreciate vomit hurtling at them from six stories up.

“Alright, Jinx,” the Student Council President amended, her tone growing serious. “As the Student Council President of Valoran Academy, I cannot allow you to continue causing trouble for our school and all its residents. You are like a loose cannon, and it is too dangerous to leave you as you are.”

Whoa, Jinx thought to herself, did that prissy thing have to refer to herself by her full title? Was there going to be a traditional showdown, would she have to identify herself too? Because that would be difficult – she was just this scrawny kid picked up as a baby in some back alley in Zaun, it would sound totally uncool. And there was no way she was going to be beaten out by a title like  _Student Council President_.

Maybe...

" _Jinx, the Loose Cannon_ ," she mumbled to herself, liking the way it sounded. It was definitely better than  _Imogen Zaun, scrawny orphan of some back alley in Zaun_. "It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Before the voice could answer - not that she particularly cared what it thought - the Principal came storming out into the yard, already shouting. She couldn't quite make out his words - he had this really weird, fancy accent - so she folded her arms and watched as the prissy President talked to him.

Seemingly placated by her words, he turned to her and shouted up, "By orders of the Academy, Miss Crownguard will henceforth be your personal tutor."

“I don’t think I'm that stupid?” she shouted down, confused. She had easily met the requirement of at least six As for the Valoran International Middle School Leaving Examination, and her second year results in Zaun City Senior High were just as stellar, if not better.

“Well, it is evident you need a behavioral tutor,” the other girl said, raising a thick file – probably all the complaint forms everyone threatened to fill about her. “Until you learn to behave like a proper student of Valoran Academy, you will be spending every day with me.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jinx responded with, “Jeez, if you wanted to ask a girl out, just do it. There’s no need for any excuses.”

To Jinx's amusement, the Crownguard girl flashed a vibrant shade of red – it seemed the Valoran Council President had a thing for girls. Not that Jinx could blame her – have you ever looked at a girl? Most of them were hot, or cute, or just…

it was plain unfair.

“Well, if you are that eager to see me, I expect you in my office at seven sharp, Jinx,” she said, before turning and marching away.

Jinx shrugged, her tone chipper, “Whatever you say, honey!”

As the crowd slowly, reluctantly, dispersed, the low voice returned to rebuke her. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on the President…”

“Oh shut up,” she huffed, sliding down the edge of the roof and onto the rain gutter, carefully picking her way along it until she reached a partially hidden window to some old storage room no one used.

As she landed safely inside, she dusted off her skirt, muttering, “Killjoy.”

“I’m only trying to keep you safe,” the low voice protested, but she chose to ignore it – herself? The whole ‘voices in your head’ thing was really confusing, like… were they you or were they not?

Still, it was not as confusing as this whole situation with Luxanna Crownguard…


	3. Deja Vu?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for disappearing for so long! I've basically made a mass-migration to the BanG Dream! fandom, and KaoChisa is my life.  
> I decided to join the Lightcannon Discord channel in hopes that it would reignite my feels to complete this story, and I really hope that it works out!!

**Lux**

 

Luxanna was pleasantly surprised to find Jinx waiting outside her and Ashe’s office at 6:50 in the morning, despite the deep scowl on the redhead’s face. Just a year prior, it was another redhead scowling at their door, only for Ashe instead, and Luxanna almost laughed as she saw the similarities in their postures.

Arms crossed in obvious displeasure, backs slouched, hair tousled, shirts crumpled around the collar, grumpy expressions fixed on sleepy faces… Hopefully, the story would end of similarly too – with Jinx no longer being a hazard to the school and herself – minus the lovestruck puppy dog part. All she wanted was for this loose cannon to become a restrained cannon, even if it did fire off once in a while. She did not want to date Jinx, no sir, no way, everything was totally platonic.

“Good morning, Jinx,” she said cheerfully, holding the door to her office open politely. “The desk by the window is empty – you can take that.”

With a low groan, Jinx shuffled into the office, her old black boots scuffing across the marble floor. “How are you so energetic at this ungodly hour?”

“The sun’s up, so we’re up,” Luxanna replied, resisting the urge to sigh as she returned to the backlog of complaint forms from the day before. “And all the work you’ve been giving us doesn’t facilitate sleeping in.”

“Who cares about that? It’s not like you can stop me,” she huffed, collapsing in a chair and promptly putting her feet up on the table.

“Get your dirty boots off the table,” Luxanna scolded, but the girl didn’t bother listening to her. “Don’t you have any homework to catch up on?”

Jinx shrugged, pulling out a stack of papers from her tattered pink backpack and slamming it onto the table. The pages were covered in complex diagrams, physics equations and some weird symbols Luxanna had never seen before, but most shockingly, it was all done.

 _That’s what they mean by ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’,_ Luxanna thought to herself as the girl grinned triumphantly, folding her stick-thin arms behind her head and rocking dangerously on her chair. If Luxanna remembered correctly, Jinx was one of the most intelligent and promising-looking orphans on paper – straight As, perfect health (despite being almost terrifyingly underweight), won Noxus University’s open engine design competition at the age of 7, completed two university-level engineering courses by the age of 13, won Zaun City Junior High’s science fair from the year she entered to the year she left, and impressed investors from Piltover United Holdings at the age of 14 with her prototype hovercycle, capable of going from 0 to 100km/h in 1.85 seconds.

If only her behavior, and possible psychosis, had been included in those documents, Valoran might have thought twice before admitting her. Her previous schools all held files thick enough to kill on her misdemeanors, but for some reason, Valoran Community had decided to withhold all that information from them until _after_ they had accepted her.

Maybe they had been just as desperate to get rid of her as the Academy is now, thought Luxanna, an awfully sad thing to admit. She was so bright, her future so promising, so why was she trying to ruin it? If she behaved just a little better, there would be no door she could not open, no road she could not take - the entire world would be hers for the taking.

“So,” Jinx’s cheerful voice brought her out from her thoughts, “What am I supposed to do while you goody-two-shoes slog through paperwork? Are these desks flammable? How about those cabinets? They’d better not be, it seems like an obvious oversight-”

She cut in sharply, “Since you seem to have no problem with engineering or physics, perhaps you could dedicate your attention to English Literature?”

Jinx groaned in response, dramatically going limp against the chair, and she feared for a moment that she was going to fall off. “Aww, but that stuff’s _boring_. Who cares about Demacian novels or Noxian war sonnets?”

“They provide important insights to humanity, as well as the mindsets of society at the time they were written,” Luxanna huffed; if this was how she truly felt about Literature, it was no wonder that the teacher was shoving complaint after complaint down the submissions box.

As if she needed any more of them. The box was overflowing with complaints from Jinx’s last stunt - broadcasting footage of the girls’ and boys’ shower rooms during the last Grand Assembly, and the little shit didn’t even look the slightest bit guilty.

“ _Boooooring_ ,” Jinx drawled, flopping against the tabletop like a cloth doll. “By the way, do you know where the Ice Queen is?”

Startled, she looked around the tidy little office, suddenly realizing that Ashe was nowhere to be seen. That was strange, the vice-President was always in the office at least thirty minutes before Luxanna arrived, rain, snow or shine, even when she had a broken leg and had to hobble her way up six flights of stairs alone.

“Good question,” she mumbled, half to herself, “I should probably go check on her…”

Jinx’s tone was smug and all-too-knowing as she replied, “I know, Princess, and I’m positive it’s not something you want to walk in on.”

“What do y-” her face colored as she realized what Jinx was implying; she really did not want to walk in on her friend sleeping with the Du Couteau girl, even if it were an innocent, adorable cuddle straight from a children’s television show. Ashe would never be able to look her in the eyes again. “How do you know that?”

“I have many eyes,” she replied playfully, probably talking about those damned cameras she’d installed. Were they in the dorms too, was she going to broadcast all the secrets she recorded in the main hall again?

The girls had been furious and mortified – Luxanna was honestly surprised that there had not been a lynching. The boys had been in that hall, and they were treated with an uncensored view of most of the first and fourth year girls in the showers. A couple of them were whooping and cheering, until Jinx went on to reveal the footage of their shower room, complete with mocking googly eyes edited onto their genitalia and scathing comments about their sizes. Especially for the fourth year boys, who did a lot of boasting about how… _big_ they supposedly were.

According to Jinx’s… comments, those boys could not tell eight inches from two, and she’d told them to look at their rulers a little more until they get a hang of estimation.

It had taken a lot of energy and effort to prevent them from setting onto Jinx and ripping her limb from limb, and Luxanna was pretty sure that a number of teachers would not have been sorry to see her go that way. After all, she was Trouble with a capital T, and no one wanted to deal with that, but the school could not afford to have a public lynching on its permanent record.

Not that they would have been able to catch the slippery little troublemaker, Luxanna thought, considering all the mysteriously high, supposedly blocked-off places Jinx had made her way into. She could probably phase through walls at will - she was certainly skinny enough to. Or maybe she was so light, she could just get blown away with the wind...

“You probably should not disrespect other’s privacy again, especially not with Katarina involved,” she warned, “That girl would put a knife through your chest and not feel sorry.”

“And get away with it too,” Jinx added flippantly, “I know all about the Du Couteau Clan and their connections. They’re part of the reason why Zaun’s the shithole it is today.”

There had always been rumors about the Du Couteaus and Zaun, as well as other high-ranking Noxian families, as Zaun’s unchecked experimentation always seemed to benefit them. Sentient robot servants, new, more frightening toxins, advancements in weaponized prosthetics, everything flowed straight into Noxus’ open arms. That Noxus was funding those mad scientists and crazy inventors was a logical conclusion, but one nobody had proven or even dared to voice aloud.

“I would not say that within twenty feet of her,” Luxanna said with a frown, “I highly doubt she would like the accusation, and you’re not exactly knife-proof.”

She shrugged in response, her tone light and casual, “Maybe I want her to kill me.”

That made Luxanna pause, her eyes wide as she turned to face the redhead, who laughed so boisterously she fell off the chair.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Jinx said, “You should see the look on your face, Princess! It’s as if somebody told you they ran over your brother.”

“That’s not funny!”

With a snarl, Luxanna turned away, regretting that she even felt a sliver of concern for the redheaded menace. What was wrong with her, making fun of something as serious as that? Did she even have an ounce of remorse in her body, was she even capable of feeling something like that?

 _Ugh,_ that girl was giving her one hell of a headache. If only she could just take a day off tomorrow, leave everything to Ashe as payback for today, and hide in her bed with the blankets over her head and pretend that nothing was wrong…

 

**Jinx**

 

By the time classes started, the Ice Queen still hadn’t shown up, and Jinx was snickering to herself as she imagined how tough it would be for her to explain her absence. She was not doing anything against the rules with the Du Couteau heiress – in fact, they were just being sickly sweet and cuddling like puppies. She was obviously stressed out by the work Jinx was giving her – serve her right, why would she bother with crappy complaint letters in the first place – and her little pet was doing whatever she could to cheer her up.

It was going to be hilarious watching the cool, calm Ice Queen turn into a red-faced, stammering idiot later; she should probably record the moment for... posterity. And the internet, of course.

Fortunately, being dragged in to sit around the frilly President was not as bad as she thought - the girl wasn’t that much of a tyrant, and she didn’t seem to have a really solid idea on what she was doing. Jinx did her homework (when it suited her) and was excelling in class; what else could she ask for?

Well, less chaos, she supposed, but where was the fun in that? She was a Zaunite, they were not built for any kind of stability, mental or otherwise. Jinx was pretty sure everyone in Zaun lived their lives high as a kite - with all the strange chemicals being freely used and the drugs that were more plentiful than food, it would not come as any sort of surprise.

Sure, life was kind of terrible that way, but it was fun!

“That’s what really matters, right?”

Once again, Jinx had found herself up on another roof she wasn’t supposed to be on, leaning back against folded arms and watching the sky. If there was one thing about the Institute that she liked, it was the sky - one could barely see the it in Zaun on a good day. It was all just toxic smog, gray clouds and sometimes, bright green or purple patches from the latest chemical experiment gone wrong.

It looked pretty, she supposed, and there was a lot of fun in having to guess when toxic rain would fall and what it would do to you - sometimes it melted skin, at others it dyed hair or gave you temporary super-strength or made you talk in a squeaky voice for days. However, there was something nice in a peaceful blue sky, it reminded her of something she could not quite place her finger on.

“Peace can be pretty nice too, huh?” The voice - Fishbones - asked.

Jinx shrugged, staring down at the crowd already starting to gather in the yard below. “It’s not going to last.”

The voice had no response to that, as if it were sorely disappointed in her. If it was, she thought, it could go suck a big one, because she didn’t care about what anyone thought about her, even herself. Or, not herself, whatever Fishbones the Magical Voice in Her Head was, she did not have the brain cells nor the patience to work that complicated problem out.

Life was too short to waste time on boring things, and the world was horrible enough without subjecting yourself to torturous rules and expectations. Fate, purpose, goals and dreams - none of that really mattered in the long run. At the end, everyone would die, regardless of how they had lived, so why not live exactly as you please and fill every moment with wild adventures?

“Jinx, how did you even get up there?” Luxanna’s exasperated voice cut through the haze of disapproving murmurs. “Actually, I don’t think I want to know.”

“You probably don’t,” she sing-songed, sitting up so suddenly she nearly pitched herself off the roof. “It involved a lot of strange body contortions.”

Luxanna grimaced, slamming the palm of her hand into her face, “Please just get down…”

“But I’ve finished my homework,” she whined, “Fishbones even made sure I did that crappy Demacian love sonnet for Literature.”

“It was beautiful!” Fishbones protested; they seemed to have a thing for sappy romantic shit, unlike Pow-Pow, who had a more respectable fondness for Noxian war novels and ancient battle cries. She should have probably expected that - there was no way a killjoy like that stupid voice would be even slightly cool.

“Oh shut up,” she snapped, crossing her arms, “Nobody cares what you think!”

A weird crease spread across Luxanna’s forehead, like a magical, thin unibrow. “Who… are you talking to?”

“Fishbones!” she replied, eyes lighting up - she had not spoken about the voices since she arrived in Valoran. Almost everyone in Zaun had them, talked about them like they were friends, but here in Valoran, they were apparently a very strange thing that no one spoke about. “They’re a real killjoy and have terrible taste in poetry.”

“That’s not true!”

Luxanna’s unibrow deepened, and a number of friends came out to join it - it made the President look pretty funny, and angry, and kind of… _concerned?_

Why would Luxanna Crownguard be concerned about the voices in her head? She was pretty sure they didn’t really interfere with her schoolwork or her behavior - in fact, Fishbones was a goody-two-shoes and was the main reason she had yet to burn down the school.

“Of course she’s worried about you,” Fishbones whispered, forcing her to back off from the edge of the roof. “She-”

Jinx growled, a strange itch burning somewhere in the depths of her skull. “Just shut up already.”

This stupid school, this stupid forced tutoring, for some strange reason, Jinx felt as if she had lived it all before.


End file.
